employment - All posts tagged employment

The much-awaited May jobs report is out. If you were hoping for some direction, well … stocks seem to have found it. But currencies, particularly the dollar-yen pair, as well as gold and oil, are showing the topsy-turvy action that's characterized markets for much of the week. Here's the wrap:

Stocks could drop not just if Friday’s jobs report is really bad, but also if it’s especially good, one strategist told MarketWatch on Thursday.

If the jobs report is too good, that will lead to what’s been worrying stock investors for a while: the Fed starting to taper its bond-buying program. So said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at investment-advisory firm DowBull.

Prado said stocks would benefit from a jobs number that hits a “sweet spot,” meaning one that’s not too bad and not too good. The consensus forecast from economists polled by MarketWatch is that the economy added 164,000 jobs in May.

This is one study you won’t see from the National Association of Realtors.

Dartmouth College’s David Blanchflower (best known for being the Bank of England member who first pressed for interest rate cuts after the onset of the financial crisis) and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick find that a doubling of the rate of home ownership in any U.S. state is followed in the longer run by more than a doubling of the unemployment rate.

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank Vice President Bill Testa offered his take Thursday on “reshoring,” the returning of offshored jobs back to the U.S., arguing that while debate remains over just how significant this phenomenon is, some industries do look set to shift employment back to the States. Read Blog: Deloitte survey shows ‘insourcing’ trend gaining favor.

Testa writes that more reshoring is likely to come from the chemical industry, thanks not to exchange rates or a need to be near the home market, but because of the sudden natural-gas boom in northern U.S. Citing a report from the Boston Consulting Group, Testa notes that natural gas is a hugely important input for the chemicals sector, which is in fact the largest nat-gas consumer in the U.S. So the shale-gas boom is making it economical for chemicals production to return.

If the U.S. adds at least 175,000 jobs in February, the number of people working will match the level of employment that prevailed shortly after Lehman Brothers failed in the fall of 2008.

The investment bank filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008, turning an already deep downturn into what many economists now call the Great Recession. Layoffs sharply accelerated after Lehman’s collapse and the number of Americans holding jobs slipped below 135 million for the first time in December 2008.

Natural gas in the U.S. is currently about $3.40 per thousand cubic feet; it’s between $10 and $11 in Europe and $15 in Asia

“Cheap natural gas is a good incentive for any manufacturer,” said Welsh. “It’s an enormous competitive advantage for the U.S.” Despite generous overseas incentives, the U.S. also offers productivity gains, predictable rule of law, protection of intellectual property, and a slowly-growing economy, he said.

For its part, DSM has wrapped up nine U.S. acquisitions in the past two years worth more than $3 billion, with 38 locations and more than 5,000 employees in North America.

The International Labour Organization’s Global Employment Trends 2013 report doesn’t paint a particularly bright picture for jobs around the world as sluggish economic conditions persist. Five years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a global economic slowdown, unemployment is on the rise, with some 197 million people without a job in 2012.

Despite a moderate pick-up in output growth expected for 2013-2014, the unemployment rate is expected to increase again and the number of unemployed worldwide is expected to rise by 5.1 million in 2013 and by another 3 million in 2012, the report said.

“Incoherence between monetary and fiscal policies” adopted by different countries…have led to uncertainty weighing on the global outlook,” the report said. “Investment has not yet recovered to pre-crisis levels in many countries. The indecision of policy makers in several countries has led to uncertainty about future conditions and reinforced corporate tendencies to increase cash holdings or pay dividends rather than expand capacity and hire new workers.”

With the ink on the new fiscal cliff bill in Washington barely dry this week, the Internal Revenue Service has quickly issued guidelines for employers on tweaks to weekly paychecks for working Americans. Social Security tax deductions on paychecks will increase by 2% to 6.2%, up from 4.2% in 2012 and 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported. The increase comes as tax cuts expired after a two-year extension approved by Congress in 2011.

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